The Eagle's Throne (25 page)

“I ordered the murder of Tomás Moctezuma Moro.”

Need I tell you why you must destroy this tape? And why I had to communicate with you so urgently?

I love you,
N.

52

NICOLÁS VALDIVIA TO TÁCITO DE LA CANAL

Sir: I’ll be brief. This letter will be delivered to you by Jesús Ricardo Magón, whom I trust implicitly. I won’t waste time on matters you and I know about already. I simply want to warn you that the incriminating documents are in my possession, and well protected.

Someone as undeniably intelligent as you will understand why I’m not going to make them public. If they were to become public knowledge that would be the end of any higher political aspirations for you. Such a scandal would seriously impede your candidacy. President Téran was aware of this. Your rival the ex-secretary of the interior, Bernal Herrera, whose position I have the honor of filling, knows. María del Rosario Galván, whom you have treated in such an ungentlemanly way, also knows, but given her fine political mind, she understands that it’s better to lose you, Mr. De la Canal, and to see you retire from public life. In exchange, those of us who know about your objectionable dealings will maintain a discreet silence.

The papers will remain locked away for one simple reason. They incriminate too many people. Bankers, administrators, and businessmen who are more useful to the country stimulating growth than purging their sins in the Almoloya jail. After all, what did their indiscretions in the MEXEN deal really amount to? Streams in a mighty river of investments, tributaries of the river of essential capital and savings that the country needs to move forward.

There are two things you have to weigh here: On one hand, Mexico’s progress; on the other hand, your guilt. Which is heavier? You’re going to say you’re not the only guilty party. Are you spiteful enough to drag down your accomplices? As for me, I think we will all be better off if everyone keeps their composure and remains silent. Also, I think it would be a good idea for you to take a long vacation. A permanent vacation, I would even suggest. Acapulco is surely more tempting than Almoloya. And we won’t say anything to your mischievous little friends, neither you nor I. Why don’t we just leave them in peace? What I’ll do is promote stricter laws governing the management of publicly and privately held companies, in the interest of eliminating fraud and insider trading, ensuring access to corporate accounting data and severely punishing the PDGs (excuse the French, that means Présidents
Directeurs Généraux
) who sell shares at high prices weeks before they plummet, knowing that those who take advantage of inflated prices, like the despicable Bush Jr. and Cheney, get out in time, leaving the smaller investors to take the hit. Like that woman Penélope Casas, who worked in your office. Do you remember her?

I propose to establish a presumption of guilt
jure et de jure
for those corporate pirates, so that it will be up to them to prove their innocence in court. I repeat: I’m going to protect the small-time investor who was cheated for lack of information, confidential information that the company chiefs and their accountants possessed. But I’m going to look to the future, not the past. Punishing the past only shows an inability to manage in the present, or plan ahead. I won’t make that mistake. But your file still exists, de la Canal, and it contains the evidence of a crime that we might be forced to expose, not to condemn the past but for the sake of the future.

Consider yourself warned. I won’t initiate any action against you or any of your co-conspirators in fraud. However, if you start making waves, either to save your own skin (which would be very imprudent), to get buried along with your accomplices, or to have the masochistic satisfaction of taking others down with you as you kill yourself . . . in that case, Mr. De la Canal, the full weight of the law will come crashing down on your bald head.

Consider yourself, then, under the sword of Damocles.

I remain your loyal and steadfast servant,
Nicolás Valdivia
UNDERSECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR

53

TÁCITO DE LA CANAL TO ANDINO ALMAZÁN

Mr. Secretary, my esteemed friend, I turn to you from the bottom of the pit into which my political enemies have thrown me. That is the state of things. Some win, some lose. But in politics there are many twists and turns. Perhaps my present disgrace and the low profile I’m being forced to maintain are in fact the best possible mask for me to use as I prepare my surprise comeback.

They say all is fair in love and war. I’d say the same goes for politics and business. I know that the undersecretary of the interior, a former subordinate of mine, has sent you a series of documents that implicate me in the MEXEN case. He himself has told me that he’s not going to pursue me because I would drag too many other powerful people down with me. I claimed that I was only following the orders of the president, César León.

Nicolás Valdivia looked at me coldly.

“The president is untouchable. The secretary is not.”

“Principles are good servants of bad masters.”

“That’s true, Mr. De la Canal. Don’t worry, from now on your hands will be clean. Because you won’t have any hands. . . .”

I do not surrender, Secretary Almazán. Not even if they were to cut off my hands, because I’d still have feet to kick with. I’ve spoken to the other people involved mentioned by Valdivia, to remind them that we’re in this together. That I only signed those papers under orders from President César León.

They laughed at me. Below I offer a literal transcription of the conversation I had with the banker most deeply involved in the complex MEXEN business scheme.

“I’ve come to discuss the MEXEN affair,” I said to him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The MEXEN shares.”

“But you don’t know anything about that, do you?”

“Excuse me?” I admit I was shocked, but I knew what he was playing at, and said, “No. That’s why I’ve come here. To find out about it.”

“If I were you, I’d stay in the dark. You’ll be better off.”

“Why?” I persisted.

“Because it’s secret,” he conceded for a moment, like a fisherman dangling a worm in front of a fish, and then ended by saying, “And it’s best to leave it at that.”

“Secret?” I said, giving away my shock. “Secret for me, who made it all possible with my signature?”

“You were just a tool,” he responded, barely hiding his scorn.

“For what purpose?”

“For keeping the deal secret.”

He looked straight through me, as if I were a window.

“Don’t lose your grip, Mr. De la Canal.”

“But I . . .”

“Thank you. Goodbye.”

I haven’t given up, Mr. Almazán. I spoke to one of the press barons. He owes me, a man who always found the doors to President Lorenzo Terán’s office open, thanks to me.

I’ll be brief.

When I asked him to defend me, at least by publishing a favorable profile of me, and maybe launching a personal rehabilitation campaign, he said, “A good journalist should never annoy his readership by eulogizing. He should only attack. Praise is boring.”

I admit I was furious, Andino.

“You owe me a lot.”

“True. The powerful always need charity.”

“All it takes is an order to one of your lackeys. . . .”

“Mr. de la Canal! I’ve never done anything like that! My contributors are independent!”

“Do you want me to prove the opposite?” I shouted, indignant. “Do you want me to bribe one of your journalists?”

I expected a cold stare from the businessman. Instead, he looked at me with the charity he’d just mentioned.

“Mr. de la Canal. My journalists are not dishonest. They’re incapable of being dishonest.”

I know that what I’m transcribing could damage me and tarnish my image. But I haven’t got many rounds of ammunition left, Mr. Almazán.

In truth I have only one.

Let me be frank. I’ve come to respect and admire you—and your family. You’re lucky to have a devoted wife, Josefina, and three lovely little girls, Teté, Talita, and Tutú. What you don’t have is much of a bank account. You live off your salary and your wife’s inheritance— what remains of one of the old agave fortunes of the Yucatán’s “Divine Caste.” . . .

I have a proposition. The fact that the MEXEN deal failed doesn’t rule out the possibility of other profitable ventures. Perhaps my political fortune is in the doghouse right now, but a good deal is always a good deal. And although I’m no longer in power, you still are—in charge of public finances, no less—which means that you can generate the kind of money required for something one might call an
investment
opportunity.

This is my plan.

Through a publicly held company you and I will offer investors with good credit ratings the chance to acquire mortgages that have been preapproved by the authorities (that is, you, Mr. Secretary) with the promise that, as of a certain date, they may be sold to any bank at a profit of two percent. In other words, guaranteed profits and very little risk. There won’t be any shortage of sharks or sardines for this venture because before the first period of investment’s up, you and I will recruit new investors, and with the money we get from them, we’ll pay the dividends to the first group, who’ll be very happy—and taken in.

The first group of investors will be grateful for the profits and will help us recruit new partners. The new partners will inject the necessary money to pay the dividends out to the previous group of investors.

This way, Andino, we’ll ensure a financial pyramid in which we attract new investment because of the profits of the existing investors, and quickly build up capital.

Unfortunately, the number of investors isn’t limitless, and once people stop investing in the pyramid it’ll collapse like a house of cards.

You and I, however, will have made our pile by extracting the profits at each stage of the operation. Then the company will be declared insolvent, we’ll be in the hands of the bankruptcy laws, and the company will be given an administration order rather than going into liquidation.

In other words, you and I can’t lose. We win every step of the way. Moreover we don’t even have to show our faces. Felipe Aguirre, communications secretary, and Antonio Bejarano, public works secretary, will do that for us. They’re ready to be our front men. Since Valdivia’s going to get rid of them, they’re eager for revenge and want our acting president to start off with a scandal. They’ll take their share, and if it occurs to Valdivia to accuse them of embezzlement while working for the government, nobody can be judged twice for the same crime. It’s a question of weighing the risks, Andino, and being willing to spend a short time in Almoloya prison in exchange for millions waiting for us in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.

You and I, prudent as we are, will have saved our earnings offshore, so that in Mexico we pass for bankrupt and the minimum is seized from the company.

I do hope you’ll consider my proposal. And don’t forget to discuss it with your dear wife. We shouldn’t do anything, you and I, without involving Josefina. After all, we’re talking about your future well-being, and Teté, Talita, and Tutú’s. I don’t think Valdivia will keep you on in his new cabinet, Mr. Secretary. And it isn’t right that you and your family should be watching the public parade of advantage and wealth from behind the window.

And remember: You’re an honorable man, and principles must always be good servants to bad masters.

Yours ever,
T

54

THE OLD MAN UNDER THE ARCHES TO CONGRESSWOMAN PAULINA TARDEGARDA

My beloved disciple and favorite friend, I turn to you with a sense of urgency, yes, but also with the reflection and deliberation that you know me for. “Slow and steady wins the race” has been my motto since the fig tree blossomed and Felipillo was made a saint—a real Mexican saint, crucified by the brutal Japanese in the sixteenth century, not like that third-rate Juan Diego de los Nopales.

Well now, just think, the fig tree is about ready to topple over with ripe fruit and the lonely nopal is flowering at last. Ah, the nopal, my darling Paulina. The symbol and the strength of our nation, for if in our emblem it is the eagle who rules and the serpent who suffers in its beak, the eagle still needs something to stand on so that it doesn’t fall into the waters of the lagoon.

I suppose I’d rather come off as a sly but ignorant old man, because the well-educated politician doesn’t inspire the trust of the common man. In the United States, Adlai Stevenson wasn’t accepted because he was too educated. “Egghead,” they called him. Bill Clinton had to hide his education from the public while Little Bush, on the other hand, actually showed off his ignorance. You know that sitting here in Veracruz I like to make the most of my francophobia, but the truth is, like everyone else, I grew up reading French novels. Dumas, Hugo, Verne—most of all Dumas and two novels, the one about the man in the iron mask, twin brother of the king who sent him to prison to eliminate any doubts as to who was in charge. Thrones have to be for one man only (or woman: sorry, Paulinita) because power depends on legitimacy for its authority.
The Man in the Iron Mask,
of course, and
The Count of Monte
Cristo,
yes, unjustly imprisoned for years and years in a castle remarkably similar to our Ulúa, here in Veracruz . . .

Well, there you have it, my dear Paulina. Your old friend, the Old Man Under the Arches, is going to introduce you to the Man in the Nopal Mask.

He is a prisoner.

He lives in the dungeons of the Castle of San Juan de Ulúa.

He wears an iron mask to ensure that he remains unrecognizable to all—even himself, of course; to make it Mexican I had it painted nopal green.

Nobody knows. And I can rely on the absolute silence of the guards because in Veracruz my word is law. One blabbermouth ended up as a snack for the sharks. That’s why Dulce de la Garza was allowed into the funeral crypt. Because I gave orders to let her in. All part of the plan.

I have kept this secret for eight years.

I’ve been patient. I’m more patient than those old ladies shuffling their cards. They say one old woman died while dealing cards. Your servant has survived by dealing his cards the way he likes. Quietly and unobtrusively, I rule this port of Veracruz. In a “balkanized” country, as Héctor Aguilar Camín would put it, divided into more fiefdoms than Argentina, who was going to deny me my little patch? Doesn’t Vidales rule in Tabasco, Quintero in Tamaulipas, and Cabezas in Sonora? They’ve respected my little republic in Veracruz, which doesn’t stretch farther than Boca del Río on one side and Hernán Cortés’s crumbling old house on the other and the road to Tononocapan just beyond. . . .

Here, I do and undo. And anyone who gets in the way gets thrown into the aquarium to learn how to wrestle with the sharks. . . . Here I am, still, untouchable, smiling. Or rather, untouchable, smiling, and
patient.
You know I’ve never stopped educating myself, but I don’t brag about what I know. You read Machiavelli’s
The Prince
out loud to me when you were a young girl. You came to console me after I was widowed. Virtue, necessity, fortune. I’ve never forgotten that. The qualities of a ruler. In Mexico in the nineteenth century, Juárez depended on virtue, Santa Anna on necessity, and Iturbide on fortune. In the twentieth century, Madero was the virtuous, Calles the necessary, and Obregón the fortunate. You see, only the necessary one wasn’t murdered. Virtue, necessity, fortune? I think only my good general Cárdenas combined all three. I, my dear Paulina, took advantage of all three, used all three, but I didn’t possess them. How could I be virtuous, necessary, or fortunate if I spent all my time being suspicious?

My vivid political sayings have been repeated ad nauseam. But there are others I keep to myself.

“In the great battles, after the heroes come the villains.”

“In politics, the noontime butterfly is the midnight vampire.”

“In Mexico, the thief precedes the honest man, who will in turn be the next thief.”

“The rear guard of Mexican politics are ass-kissers, thieves, blackmailers, villains, and perfumed groupies.”

“Look at the doves flying. The vultures are right behind them.”

Paulina, there are periods of national fright and there are periods of national fever. Today a feverish fright threatens. President Terán’s death may well open the floodgates. Arruza is betting on a military coup. César León, on re-election. Herrera on becoming the late president’s favorite son. As far as I can see it Tácito is out, he’s too obviously corrupt, a lackey and an idiot.

I said as much to him once, “You’re a rat climbing onto a sinking ship. You’re too clever for your own good, but you’re still nothing but an idiot.”

“I serve the president, Mr. President,” he had the nerve to say to me.

“What you do really well, Tácito, is obey the president’s orders before he’s given them.”

“Sir, I’m what they call an independent courtier,” the creep said.

“Never was there a better slave for a worse master.” I sighed.

An amusing aside, Paulina: Knowing that Tácito’s vanity is his greatest weakness, and that he thinks himself so popular, I organized a tribute to him, hosted by the so-called interest groups here in Veracruz. In that very place, when it was time for the toast, I accused him of being ambitious. Nobody stood up to defend him.

Tácito smiled, and extraordinary as it might seem, said, “What the hell do you want from me? I’m nobody. Don’t waste your time attacking me.”

“I’m not attacking you,” I said loudly. “I’m defining you. You are a parasite.”

“Since when has it been a crime here to do nothing?” he said with a broad smile.

As everyone present knew he was referring to them, the little gathering broke up with laughter and hugs.

[Brief pause in the tape, chuckles from the Old Man, and then a sigh.]

Andino Almazán is nothing but a puppet of his ambitious wife. The one I fear is Nicolás Valdivia. He’s young, he’s innocent, he’s intelligent, I like him, and I’d put my money on him. The question, Paulina, is this: Is he ours? I don’t think so. He’s young, he’s pure, he’s independent. That is to say he’s ambitious and is looking out for his interests and his interests alone. María del Rosario supports him. But does he support María del Rosario? That remains to be seen. I know you don’t get on with the Dragon Lady of Las Lomas, as you call her. Think about it objectively, weigh it up, gauge your potential for influence. And finally, your president of Congress, Onésimo Canabal, he’s pure Play-Doh. Between you and me we can shape him as we want, as long as César León, who has more power over him, doesn’t get there first.

[Long pause in the tape.]

Paulina. A ruler can be good or bad, but he must always be legitimate. Or at least he must appear to be legitimate. In a matter of days, perhaps hours, Congress will grant legitimacy to the person it makes acting president. You know how patient I am. I’ve reached old age because I’ve always taken the long view. I’ve never indulged in instant gratification, unlike so many people do today. I know that times change. There is a time to live, and a time to die, a time for war, and a time for peace. . . . You read me that years ago, my darling girl, and it left me more impressed than a condom in the rain.

A time for war, a time for peace. How are we to separate them, to distinguish them? Let me tell you. Eight years ago, Tomás Moctezuma Moro started his candidacy with a platform of combative idealism that stirred up a lot of animosity—and there’s plenty of that in this country. His government would have been impossible. They would have attacked him from every side. They would have paralyzed him and plunged the country into a tub of molasses. They would have frozen him as ice freezes, without the slightest breath of wind. Because wind is a hammer, but ice is a tomb. And that is that.

Paulina, you were the person who gave me the idea when you were inspired to say that the cold was the “secret ministry.” And Paulina, is there any place colder, darker, more humid, more resistant to wind, but hammer and ice at the same time, than a prison cell in the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa?

The Man in the Nopal Mask. A symbol, Paulina, a symbol in a world that can’t live without them. A symbol. The iron mask, but painted nopal green so that the poor prisoner feels comfortable, at home, less displaced. For eight years he’s been believed to be dead. A wax figure melting under his tombstone, which reads:

TOMÁS MOCTEZUMA MORO
1973–2012

and a man in a green iron mask languishing in the dungeons of Ulúa for his own good, Paulina, you must understand that, for his own good, to save him from the death to which his impetuous idealism would have condemned him, to save him from the inevitable bullet of the hit man, the local boss, the drug trafficker, to save him from the vultures ready to eat him alive, I killed him, Paulina, I ordered his kidnapping for his own good and I myself, with the authority of an old patriarch from Veracruz, announced his assassination to the shocked country, and ordered the immediate capture and death of the assassin, an Argentinian madman called Martín Caparrós, a militant from the underground party Cattle to the Slaughterhouse: pure fiction, all of it, but the best fiction—that is, impossible to confirm. . . .

I organized the funeral here in Veracruz, since Tomás was originally from Alvarado, where every May the landscape is a forest of crosses asking forgiveness for that obscene language they use. In Alvarado that means a lot of crosses. You’ll think I’m digressing, getting carried away about the place I came from. No, Paulina, Tomás Moctezuma Moro was the favorite son of this state; he deserved all the crosses in Alvarado.

I made all the people who participated in the funeral farce disappear (don’t ask me how or where). The bogus embalmers, the manufacturers of the wax model, the inevitable witnesses (very few, only two or three) of the invented crime . . . And then one dark night, Tomás Moctezuma Moro entered the Ulúa fortress with no identity beyond that of “The Man in the Nopal Mask.” And he’s been there for the past eight years, his existence unknown, his mask part of his face, stuck to his skin. . . .

Why, what for, my dear child? To save him from himself, from his fatal idealism, from the inevitable swarm of enemies he’d aroused. Anyone could have murdered him! He was a threat not to too many, but to
all
vested interests. My idealistic, pure, dedicated, passionate disciple, why, he was like my son: Tomás Moctezuma Moro, eight years locked up in the castle fortress, eight years with the nopal mask, eight years waiting to be released and brought back into the light, when his virtues would no longer be a threat but a guarantee of legitimacy, butter instead of mustard for the national sandwich, my dear Paulina.

Let them not look for five legs when the cat’s only got four. Let’s not deceive ourselves, because Mexico already has a president elected according to the constitution.

His name is Tomás Moctezuma Moro.

He’s our cat—but tomorrow he’ll be a tiger capable of finishing off all those mediocre pretenders aspiring to succeed Lorenzo Terán.

Paulina. Set the wheels in motion for Congress to reinstate Tomás Moctezuma Moro and inaugurate him as the legitimate president elect—we don’t need an interim president, an acting president, or new elections. Stop César León in his tracks. Push that pusillanimous Onésimo Canabal out of the way. We have our president. It’s Moro’s hour. Eight years ago he was killed. And today his restless idealism is the best medicine we can give this country after Lorenzo Terán’s infuriating spinelessness.

Look me in the eye, Paulina. Look at me and see everything that’s going to happen. Better still, imagine that everything that’s going to happen has already happened.

And when you look at me again, don’t be afraid. My blood has to run cold in order to freeze everyone else’s.